Our school recently participated in our semi-annual Outreach Day and I was reminded of the advice we often give to students before they go out to serve: It doesn’t always feel good to get help.  No matter how sincere the charity, there is something very human about resisting it (rooted, no doubt in our sense of self-determinism).  I experienced this recently while shopping at Harris Teeter.  When the clerk saw how many groceries I crammed into the shopping cart, he quickly offered to get someone to help me load them in the car (it should be noted that I was shopping for a family of six humans and two dogs).  Although I was quick to dismiss his offer, the truth was that it was no small effort to get all of those items into the car, even if I was determined to do it myself.

Sadly this posture of self-sufficiency is not limited to my earthly interactions.  I am quick to amen the gospel of grace when it comes to my salvation, and yet I am also all-too-familiar with how easy it is to add works to justify my standing before God.  I might dress it up and call it stewardship, but at the end of the day my attitude reflects a need for affirmation that I’ve done enough for God to warrant His affections toward me.  But when I read Paul’s letters, it couldn’t be more clear that God saves and sanctifies me despite my efforts…you know, something to the tune of being saved by grace and that not of myself so that I cannot boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

This is especially important for our students as they grapple with the weight of expectations.  Paul is equally clear that grace is not a license to sin (Romans 6), but it is an invitation to receive the perfect righteousness of another and then trust that God will complete what He started in us (Philippians 1:6).  The most important thing our students could ever learn is their helpless standing apart from the grace of God.  No measure of charitable acts or personal achievement will ever be enough to justify them before God and this truth remains even after they are saved by Him.  This is good news and a powerful reminder that we are dead to ourselves (Galatians 2:20) and the world (Romans 12:1-2).  Receiving help doesn’t always feel good, but it is also an occasion to remember that we never graduate beyond our need for God’s grace however He chooses to dispense it in our lives.  It reminds me of the words once shared with me from an elderly saint who was nearing the end of her life:  Anything good found in me was the result of God’s grace in my life and everything else had been dealt with by my savior on the cross.  Amen.